I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished
Mayor,
who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin.
And I am proud -- And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor
who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and
progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General
Clay, who -- who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and
will come again if ever needed.

Two thousand years ago
-- Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum."1 Today,
in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."

(I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.)

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say
they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist
world.

Let them come to Berlin.

There are some who say -- There are some who
say that communism is the wave of the future.

Let them come to Berlin.

And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with
the Communists.

Let them come to Berlin.

And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an
evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress.

Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen.

Let them come to Berlin.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect.
But we have
never had to put a wall up to keep our people in -- to prevent them from
leaving us. I want to say on behalf of my countrymen who live many miles
away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that
they take the greatest pride, that they have been able to share with you,
even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town,
no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the
vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West
Berlin.

While the wall is the most obvious and
vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system -- for all the
world to see -- we take no satisfaction in it; for it is, as your Mayor
has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against
humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers
and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

What is -- What is true of this city is true of Germany:
Real,
lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of
four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a
free choice. In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of
Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite
their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all
people.

You live in a defended island of
freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you, as I close,
to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow,
beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of
Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day
of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.
When all are free, then we look -- can look forward to that day when this city
will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe
in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will,
the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost
two decades.